Reply to Family member has a serious acute medical emergency but would just like for me to pay up and shut up

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Reply to "Family member has a serious acute medical emergency but would just like for me to pay up and shut up"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
What I get from reading this is that the OP has not been given more details, that she is just expected to accept "medical emergency" as the reason for a fourth gift of a large amount of money.

If you have it to give, do so. Be sure to let them know, however, that your reserves are now officially wiped out. Give, for this last time.

When asked again (because we know there will be another catastrophic car need or house damage accident or something), explain that your four gifts of X, X, X, and X amounts (totaling XXXX) wiped you out and suggest two things, like a bank loan or a local social service agency, insurance, or whatever.

Commiserate in the future, but no more giving. Unless you're truly in it for the long haul, and you're okay with this set up. Even then, moving forward, offer to make direct payments. For example, child X needs braces, wisdom teeth extracted, whatever. Fine, what's the dentist's name, I'll send a check out today. Accountant said I'd face tax liability if I kept making checks out to you and not claiming you as a dependent (or something that sounds authoritative, if entirely inaccurate).

Call the bluff by maintaining that your hands are tied---either because you've been wiped out by past gifts or some accountant/audit/thing has instructed you thusly.

[/quote]

I agree with this. Also, don't agree to just give the person money, tell them to give you the name of whomever they owe money to, and that you'll pay the bill directly. We've helped my FIL on a few occasions by giving him the money he said he needed, but once started insisting on paying directly every time he asked, the vast majority of financial crises magically resolved themselves with no payment required.[/quote]

Oh, forgot to mention the other thing we did. For those times when he was inclined to let us pay directly, we followed up by saying that after we paid the bill, he needed to work with us to figure out a payment plan for repaying the debt. To the extent paying directly didn't make the crisis disappear, this helped a lot too because he didn't want to show us his finances so he figured out how to deal with stuff himself.[/quote]

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